Overcoming Imposter Syndrome with Beth Cadwell

Hello, welcome everyone. Thank you for taking the time to discuss an important and deep topic, which is overcoming the imposter syndrome. And thank you to Beth Cadwell for making, for giving her time and wanting to inspire a new generation of women who will take their power back. I want to welcome you to the Future of Leadership with Fractional Executive Women. My name is Virginie Glaenzer. I am the founder of Econoak and a fractional chief marketing officer for the last 6 years. Our community is excited to host this event. We are 25 fractional executive women with a whole wide range of responsibilities such as chief data officers to chief customer revenue. Our mission is simple. We are promoting and encouraging greater female representation in leadership positions across the world, and we do that through our purpose, which is to understand the dynamic needs of business and provide our members with the knowledge and the community so they can build successful fractional and business practices. We want more women in power. What sets EconoQ apart? We are an executive women-only community. Where we can truly focus on our, on achieving greatness together. We co-create offering to find new forms of revenue, such as the recently launched Leadership Access Membership and our think tank. And of course, we share the revenue. We also share resources and framework, which help us thrive for excellence in our work. The community will raise our members' unique voices through various opportunities, such as writing on our blog, in the newsletter, doing podcasts and events. And finally, we build meaningful business relationships with extraordinary women. We're only 25. We will grow maximum to 50 so we can really have unique and deep relationships with all of us. So today, the workshop that you are attending is part of a 5-workshop series over the summer. We will start— we are starting on June 20th on the overcoming imposter syndrome topic. And then in August, on August 14th, we'll talk about power and change the negative connotation associated with the word power that prevents some of us, maybe not all of us, but some of us to fully step into our own power, navigating and shifting power structure for women. September will be about money, breaking the glass ceiling in personal finance for women. November 20th will be about cultivating a culture of continuous learning and adaptation, and we'll end in December with legacy, building a legacy for the next generation. But today we're going to focus on overcoming the imposter syndrome, and hopefully you will have— you have received the pre-event exercise that I sent earlier. If If you have not, we will definitely send it by email before, um, after the webinar. So let me introduce you to our speaker, Beth Cadwell. And if you don't know her, she is an extraordinary woman with many talents. I'd like to spend a few minutes on her bio. So Beth Cadwell is a self-help author from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She's the author of several leadership columns in American City Business journals, Thrive Global, Smart Business, or the popular web TV show, The Morning Mastermind. Beth is also well known as the founder and lead teacher for Leadership Academy for Women. She spent 4 years as a global instructor with the Steve Harvey Success Institute. She has received multiple awards, including a Radical Leadership Award, Top 20 Most Influential Women on LinkedIn, Pittsburgh Magazine 40 Under 40, and the Woman of Courage Award. Her favorite thing is to do, to do is to help women create the life, love, and business they've always dreamed of. And finally, her last and 13th book is called Overcoming Imposter Syndrome. Thank you again, Beth, for joining us.

I help women grow their practice to full capacity with the waiting list. I have one client here, um, on the call with us today. And so those of you who are fractionals, right, some of you, your practice is full capacity with one client, but some of you want 3 or 4 clients. And that is what I do. And part of being a leader in this world and part of my role of being a leadership is to call things out and speak up. These are some of the books that I have written, and these are some of the people that I've been fortunate enough to be on stage with. You might recognize Steve Harvey. Virginie mentioned him and Suze Orman. If we ever get to have a glass of wine together or cocktails, I will tell you about the time that I opened on stage for Suze Orman. And how she criticized my talk in a way that cut me to the quick, but it was really the best advice I ever got on speaking. So we don't have time to talk about that today, but I would love to share that with you. Okay, I wanna give you an alert about today. This is kind of like when you get a prescription drug, right? Once you understand imposter syndrome and you break through it, when you get a renewed confidence and begin to believe in yourself again, This can cause you to begin to take new risks, stretch outside of your comfort zone, stop avoiding success, embrace growth, accept new challenges, feel proud of your accomplishments, and best of all, encourage others to do the same. Okay, that is the most important thing. You know, we don't all suffer from imposter syndrome, and we don't all suffer from it our entire lives. Imposter syndrome is something that affects about 25 to 30% of high achievers. So what is imposter syndrome? This is— if some of you have had your— if you have been able to do your pre-work, that's great. You have a little bit of advance notice on this. And if you haven't, you'll get a chance to do it after the session. But imposter syndrome is a part of our culture today. Not just in the United States, but it's something that women around the country in our culture experience. It has to do with being raised in a patriarchal society. And it is when women and girls are often asked questions more about being girls than being accomplished. Okay. And it's things like, who's your boyfriend? When are you going to get married? Where are you going to get married? What kind of wedding are you going to have? Those kind of things instead of the kind of questions of like, what's your— do you like math? Do you like science? What college do you want to go to? We plant these kinds of seeds and even seeds such as that may be unintentional, such as, you know, let somebody stronger do that for you. Even those sorts of things. Okay, now there's other ways that you can have imposter syndrome planted. Um, for example, it could be a criticism that you get, or it could be when somebody is very harsh with you. I have many, many stories, but I won't have time to get into all of them. I think we could talk about this for an entire weekend, but I want to let you know that imposter syndrome affects all of us. So you may recognize Sheryl Sandberg. And she says that when she was young, every time she was called on in class, I was sure that I was about to embarrass myself. Every time I took a test, I was sure that it had gone badly. And every time I didn't embarrass myself, or even when I excelled, I believed that I had fooled everyone yet again. And one day soon, the jig would be up. You know who Sheryl Sandberg is? She's the— she was the COO of Facebook. And the author of Lean In, one of the best-selling books of all time, when she said that. One of my personal role models, Joyce Rocher, who is the CEO— she's retired now, but she was the CEO of Girls Incorporated. She said that when she was in college, she was so afraid of being wrong or looking dumb that she stayed quiet not only through college but through very much of her early career. She insisted that everything she said were perfect before she took a chance of saying anything. She has an MBA from Columbia University. She's the author of a fabulous book and the CEO of Girls Incorporated. And she kept quiet for most of her career. And then you may recognize Natalie Portman. She's not only an activist and a model and an Emmy Award-winning actress, but she's also a Harvard graduate. And when she gave a commencement speech at Harvard, She said today during her speech, she said, today I feel very much like I did when I came to Harvard as a freshman. I felt that there must have been some mistake, that I wasn't smart enough to be here, and that every time I opened my mouth, I would have to prove I wasn't a dumb actress. And these comments just hurt my heart. This is a phenomenon, okay? And we are going to talk about this. So my number 1, I'm gonna give you 6 steps today, and I hope you have a pen and paper, and if not, you wanna grab one right away. And, but don't be alarmed because we are recording this. And when you get the recording, this is something that you can listen to. You don't have to watch it. You can also just listen to this. I do go fast. And so you can listen to it over and over again because I feel that you will hear things that will resonate you with you differently every time you hear it. Okay, so number 1, the number 1 tip that I want to give you is that imposter syndrome is a habit that is deeply embedded in our minds and in our culture. And changing this habit is not like just flipping a light switch, like, oh, There's imposter syndrome. Beth told me about that. Okay, that's, that's it. This is something that we have been doing for a long time, and it's going to take us a bit of time to, to reprogram these thoughts. Okay. And so what I want you to do is first begin to notice this. So you may recognize the imposter in this way. So you might walk into a room of colleagues and feel that you don't belong. Hello, imposter. You might raise your hand to volunteer and then pull it down because you think, oh, maybe somebody else is more qualified. You might get notice that you've received an award or promotion and think, did they make a mistake? Hello, imposter. You might not share an idea or a thought because you don't want to look dumb. You might be constantly trying to prove, prove your worth. Perhaps it's in doing a proposal that you keep checking over and over again to make it more and more perfect, or to check obsessively for a way that you can make it better, or the chance that you may have made a mistake. Hello, imposter. Now, maybe you're somebody that has escaped this. That would be fantastic. If that's the case, please start paying attention to the women around you and even the men around you and the people that you work with and start paying attention to where the imposter is showing up there. Okay? And as you think about this and you begin to notice these things, notice these patterns and notice when you or others are staying small. And begin to catch that pattern. Oh, hello there. There's the imposter. Oh, there was the imposter again. I just had the opportunity to pitch myself and I let it pass by. Or when it's happening in the moment, you catch it. Okay? And then so in the beginning, anytime you're trying to change any kind of habit, like, oh, I just did it again. I just did it again. And then you're, you're about to do it, right? And then sometimes you catch it before it's happened, and then you can make that little change if you have the courage. One thing I love to do— you've probably done this because you're all very accomplished women— sometimes we can catch the imposter when we're texting or when we're sending an email, especially if you're over-apologetic or if you're second-guessing yourself or if you're over-obsessing about something you're saying. Okay, so, oops. That is recognizing the imposter. Oh my gosh, for all of us high achievers, being aware of the problem, the biggest thing, isn't it? Because when we're aware of something, we can totally fix it, right? So step number 2 is to remember the truth. Okay, so I like to tell my clients and colleagues, It is not who you are that holds you back. It is who you think you're not. It's not who you are that holds you back. It's who you think you're not. And when we're little, we're born feeling that we are superpowers and we can do anything, aren't we? And then it's not until we get into school or we get to, to where we get away from our imagination world. Where people began telling us the things that we can't do, we shouldn't do, we're not supposed to do. Little girls don't do that. Good girls don't do that. And especially, I think, in younger girls today, from when they're very young, they are really exposed to the stories with the powerful princesses. Actually, very interesting aside here, imposter syndrome now is showing up more in young men. Than it is in young women, because the young generation today is the first generation that has grown up with power princesses. And if you really think about it, if you happen to, to watch American television, if you think about the past 30 years, American television and movies has, has really portrayed powerful women and dumb men. It's been very funny in American culture to have a very dumb man on the Disney Channel, on the cartoons, and all of the movies, just kind of let— sort of like Everybody Loves Raymond, not very smart, let the woman do all the things. And that's actually caused imposter syndrome to sort of flip, and we're seeing it now in younger men. Very interesting, kind of a switch in the phenomenon. Um, but remembering the truth So maybe when you were young, hopefully, I don't think the women in this group, but certainly a lot of the women in my family, a lot of the girls in my family were told things like, you know, math is really hard. Are you sure you want to try that? And, you know, science is pretty complicated. Or how about, how about this? Women bosses are really difficult. Are you sure you want to work for a woman boss? Are you sure you want to be a woman boss? Here's one I've heard a lot: if you make a lot of money, you could emasculate your husband. Is that the truth? Sometimes we want to, um, remember the truth. We're always going to come across people who embrace these sort of things, and what I have learned is folks that embrace those thoughts are made uncomfortable by our presence. And so the best way to remember your truth is to remember that what you're doing and what gives you joy can make others uncomfortable. That doesn't make it untrue. So step number 2 is to remember your truth. Okay, now step number 3 in overcoming, being aware and overcoming and battering down this imposter is to trust your inner voice. And this is one of my very good friends and clients, Heidi Sadecki. And I love this picture of Heidi. When we were creating Heidi's website about 5 years ago, I had a photographer go on site to where she teaches, she does leadership retreats. So she does full-day leadership retreats at her home, and she has like small groups of people from different size organizations that go away all day and work on their businesses. And when she was leaving her very toxic corporate workplace, the things that they told her— you'll never succeed, this is very risky, you're taking a big chance, you'll be back. They battered her, okay? But Heidi knew that she was not going to survive in that toxic workplace where she had wound up, okay? You should really stay. You should really get a PhD. You should really do this. You should get another certificate. You should la la la la la, okay? She worked for a European organization. You should go over to Germany. You should la la la la. You're going to emasculate your husband. She had all the things. But Heidi, this was before she met me. Heidi felt very, very strong that she was destined to start this business. And nobody was doing this kind of business, at least not in our part of town. And Heidi had nobody on her side, and she trusted her inner voice. And this picture Look at this. She is doing what she is meant to do. And what a, a big, um, risk that she really took by trusting her inner voice and sticking to it. Her parents didn't want her to do it. Her sister didn't want her to do it. Her coworkers didn't want to do it. Her friends and neighbors didn't want her to do it. Yeah, it was a really big, big thing. So trust your inner voice. Your inner voice will never lie to you, but the people who are threatened by what you're doing, the people who are uncomfortable by what you're doing, they will often tell you what they want you to do that will make them more comfortable. You know, I'm not married. I don't know how many of you here on this call are married or not married, and it doesn't matter. But a lot of times I have people come up to me at my book signings and ask me, when am I going to get married? I was in a long-term relationship. When are you getting married? When are you are you going to get married? And it used to frustrate me because I was getting up on, on the stage and I would give this fabulous leadership training. I write all these columns on leadership and I travel around the country and I give this wonderful advice on being a great leader. And then inevitably, every single time, somebody comes up to me, are you gonna get married? And I'm like, oh my gosh. And then somebody very wise said to me, have you ever noticed that the people who ask you, are you going to get married, are always the people who are unhappily married? And I was like, huh, I never noticed that. But these are the people who are always giving you that advice. They're the people that aren't happy in their own life. So pay attention to that. And, oh, and I'm going to talk to you more about finding your own tribe, right? But number 3, trust your inner voice. We're going to talk next about taking full responsibility. So what we're going to do is we're going to talk about taking personal responsibility and really taking that back to yourself. And how this might seem very simple to you, but it's not simple to a 4-year-old girl or a 6-year-old girl or an 8-year-old girl or a 12-year-old or even a 14, 16-year-old. And that's who you were when you got many of these messages. Okay. When I was 17— let me go back to when I was 2. When I was 2, I wanted to be a speaker. When I was 4, I wanted to be a writer. I was writing books before I could read. Okay. When I was a little girl, when I was about 8, For Christmas one year, you know, my brother got like a GI Joe and my sister got a baby doll, and I got these little push pins like to publish books because my mom, my mom was like 3-hole punching my books and she got me these push pins so I could officially publish my books. Like, I wanted to be a writer and speaker since I could breathe, okay? So when I was 17 years old and I was in high school, there was a group, maybe you're familiar with it, called Junior Achievements. And I had a Junior Achievement sponsor and she saw something in me that she saw a spark in me and she signed me up to do a public speaking competition. And we did it through the whole year. It started in November and I kept winning. I kept doing better. Now, my family loved me, but they didn't think I was anything fabulous. They thought that I talked entirely too much and entirely too loud and entirely too fast, right? That was what they thought of me. And so, but this woman really believed me and she would actually pick me up at my house. She was a schoolteacher for a different school district. She would pick me up at my house and would drive me on Tuesday nights and Wednesday nights and Saturday mornings to these different competitions. And I probably competed maybe 8 times all the way through May. And I got to the very— to the state final, the state semifinals. I was in 11th grade. I was 17. And I came up next to, in the final, the semifinal to go to state finals, to somebody in my own high school who was 18. She was a senior. And it was her last chance. She was also in my Girl Scout troop and she knew me and I knew her. And so here's Miss Bath, Miss Optimistic. I get up on the stage and I see her and she was competing with a different company, so I didn't know she was going to be there. She didn't know I was going to be there. So she saw me and she was like, oh no. And I saw her and I was like, hi, like, yay for us. We're both here, right? But she saw me and what she said was like in her head, This was my last chance. So I sat next to her and I was like, hey, Lisa, it's so good to see you. Good luck, good luck. And she leaned over and she whispered in my ear and she said, Beth, I don't really think this is the place for the daughter of a blue-collar worker. And I didn't know what a blue-collar worker was. But I didn't think it was good. And I just had this feeling like I'm not supposed to be here. How can you go from I'm so happy to be here to, oh my God, I shouldn't be here? This happens to us, and it can happen like that. So I got up, and she said that to me a second before I got in front of the microphone. And I still will not forget to this day that I got to the microphone, and I looked in the light, and I saw my teacher supporter, and I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. Oh, this speech that I had practiced for months, and I'd practiced with her in school and out of school and in the car, and she was just like, What happened? And I never told anybody. And I didn't ever speak again in public, you all, until I was 38 years old, almost over 20 years later. And that's not really true because I did speak in public. Like, I spoke at PTA meetings. I spoke in college. I spoke in my son's soccer. You know, I was on the parent league for my son's soccer. Every time I did, of course, I'd forgotten about that. Situation for years. Every time I spoke after that, I had crushing anxiety. And I had totally forgotten about that experience until one day I started speaking through my anxiety. People started saying to me, you're really good. How come you're not speaking all the time? Be like, I don't know. Why am I not speaking all the time? I used to want to speak. I had to give it some thought. Okay. And so the truth is, for me, if you look at your statement, the truth is that I avoided speaking because I was fearing being embarrassed. And I didn't feel that I belonged on the stage because some girl told me I didn't. But I was a child. I wasn't an adult at that time. And now that I'm an adult, I know better. And you know, I made a video. I do that Morning Mastermind, uh, uh, show, and I made a video, and she's in the community, and I'm sure she watched it, but I know she has no idea that the show isn't about her at all. I'm sure she has no memory of doing it at all. Okay. Okay. So that is step number 4, take full responsibility. So since we don't have the handout working, we'll get that to you later. We're gonna skip that part and we can just let you all do that on your own. But at what, what, what thoughts do you have that maybe need to be reprogrammed? Even though they may have been planted in you as a child, we're now grown-ups now, and it's time to take responsibility for that reprogramming. Okay, the great— this takes courage. Takes a lot of courage to face it. It, it might— you might have to face some tears. You might have to face some very uncomfortable feelings in here. But the great news is you break through to, to that sense of freedom. And the even better news is, is that you give women all around you permission to do the same and courage to do the same. Step number 4, scariest and my favorite step. Okay, step number 5 is to find your circle of support. A lot of imposter syndrome comes from, in my opinion, you and me making other people uncomfortable, and so them trying to put us back in our place so that they feel uncomfortable. Okay, and so what we do is Let's say, for example, this happens a lot. I work with women a lot that have this, though. They'll be deciding what they want to do in their life, and even today, their family wants them to get married. Even today, their family is not happy if they're not married. Okay, many women today, even today, Their family wants them to work in the family business. Okay, or they want them to work in a secure field like teaching or nursing or medicine or accounting. But maybe the woman wants to be an artist, or maybe she wants to be an interior designer. Okay, so it takes a lot of courage, and that even goes back to saying the truth. Here's an example that I give going back and We'll straddle both of these at the same time. Here's a place where I also help women tell the truth. The truth is, the situation is, I hate my job, but my family is dependent on my income. And so I will stay for now. That's a truth. Okay, how about this truth? My job is toxic and I need to find a replacement to support my family. Does that feel right? Okay, they can both be true. Here's a truth. My family would be very comfortable if I stayed in the family business. My family has a business and I happen to love interior design. This is going to be awkward, right? That can also be a truth, but we have to face the truth. Okay, and how— one way to make that easier is to have a circle of support, because if you are only surrounded by people who don't agree with you, Y'all, that is so exhausting. Okay, and we live in a time where we can find other people who are like us. We can find them in person. We can find them on the internet. Um, we can find groups that already exist, or we can create our own. And doesn't the internet like this? I don't even know. I would love it if you would all put like where you're dialing in from today. Because I was thinking about this this morning. You know, before recently, I would have— I started getting ready for this about maybe 11 o'clock this morning Eastern time. But, you know, in the past, I would have driven like last night. I would have like driven down last night and then had to get up and like 8:30 in the morning, driven to a parking garage. All of us would have had to drive into the downtown, right? Like, look at what technology has allowed us to do. And I bet every one of us today has met somebody or seen somebody that we would have never met before. We have— those of us here today have opportunities that our mothers and our grandmothers and our aunts never had. We are so fortunate. Okay, so step number 5, find a circle of support or create one of your own. Okay, the last one, number 6, is to create change. I'm gonna look at my book because I can't see my notes, and I don't, I don't really have a ton of notes. I mean, I definitely know how to do this, but I did. I think it's so important for us to show others the way, because this is how we eliminate future imposter syndrome for women and girls and men and boys. There's no reason to have this kind of head trash. On our planet today or going forward. Okay. So how can we influence change? There's some things that we can do ourselves. And this takes some grown-up responsibility, right? How about number 1? Let's get to know people before we judge them. We live in a very judgmental culture. We, we make assumptions about people as soon as we see them. So how about let's get more curious about why people do things? That is such a fantastic lesson to not only teach our friends and family, but also to teach our coworkers to be curious about what maybe somebody's motives are. Okay, how about— here's one, this is going to sound— I hope this is unlike any advice that you've ever gotten before. Okay, As a way to eliminate future imposter syndrome, how about trusting yourself? How about trusting your own judgment? Because even when you are stepping out of your own comfort zone, you— and you're not perfect, recognizing that you are a work in progress and that change really takes courage. Okay? And so whenever you feel self-critical, you could ask yourself, like, if Beth called while we're doing this, would I really speak like this to her? How many of you have ever looked in the mirror and said, I can't believe you did that? Would you ever say that to somebody like me? Probably not. You wouldn't say that to your coworkers, right? So we can eliminate future imposter syndrome by being careful how we judge other people, trusting ourselves, acknowledging ourselves, and helping to reframe those societal pressures. So the next time that you find yourself— because we do this, we see a little girl, we're at a wedding, and we say, what kind of wedding do you have? What do you want to have when you grow up? Probably none of you do that, but A lot of people do that. Or, are you going to the prom? Or, do you have a boyfriend? So when we catch ourselves doing that, or when we witness somebody else doing that, okay, instead of judging that person, because this has been programmed into doing this. And if you don't know why, it's because for centuries, this is what we've only had to celebrate. Weddings, births, funerals. This is what our culture has been programmed to celebrate, right? Women who didn't have careers, what else did they have to celebrate? Okay, so when you observe that happening, you just come in and ask that same girl, just ask a different question. Hey, do you think that dogs and cats can communicate? Hey, if you could travel to any planet in the universe, which planet would you go to? When you start asking girls really refreshing questions, you'll get these little cute little giggles and this imagination started. And what happens when you do that is, yeah, it seems a little weird to some people, but you're planting seeds and you're setting an example. Okay, so there's, there's just— these are simple ways that you can eliminate future imposter syndrome. Okay, so that is influencing change. Take them with you. Okay, so remember, just like we said in the beginning, when you have renewed confidence, when you believe in yourself, take new risks, you'll stretch outside of your comfort zone, you can stop avoiding success, be proud of your accomplishments, most important, inspire others to do the same. Okay, so we have all 6 steps I do not think I can put this in the chat. That was my goal. I have an image for you because obviously we are not in the same room together, so I can't give them to you. But I do have it all printed for you on one sheet of paper, so we will make sure that you get that in an email right after this today. Okay? And actually, I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna put— I think I have this. There's my LinkedIn. If you want to connect with me on LinkedIn, if we don't get it another way, I'll make sure I get it to you that way. But here are all 6 steps. Recognize the imposter. Remember the truth. Trust your own voice, not the shooters. Take full responsibility. Surround yourself with people that are of like minds. The best one of all is influence change. And here's the list. You're gonna get that in your email. You can print this up, put it up on your bulletin board, stick it on your— you can even download it and put it on your desktop. And I do not mind if you print this up and pass it around your office. That is totally fine with me. Okay, if you do like to read, if you do like to read, this is the book. And it is available around the country. It's at Barnes Noble in the United States. Chapter and Coles is in Canada, Dymocks in the UK, Waterstones in Australia, and of course Amazon all over the world. Okay, this is my other book. It's called From Frantic to Focused. This book is a little bit more on productivity, and those are my 2 bestselling books, and I think the ones that you all would enjoy. And here's what I wanna remind you. It's not who you are that holds you back. It's who you think you're not. So I wanna thank you all for having me here to kick off this very important series. Please check out Acorn Oak. I know that membership is only limited to 50. So if you are interested in being a fractional, this is definitely an organization that you will want to check out. And I think that we will take questions now, but let's stop the recording first so we can keep this as a safe and private space.